Too Late Blues

The prophetic jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler, who today is seen as one of the most important innovators in jazz, was obsessed with his radical music and by the thought that people one day would understand it. In 1962 he recorded his first album in Sweden. Eight years later he was found dead in New York's East River, aged 34. (TCM)

Olivier Assayas, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven and Alfonso Cuaron are among the 20 distinguished directors who contribute to this collection of 18 stories, each exploring a different aspect of Parisian life. The colourful characters in this drama include a pair of mimes, a husband trying to choose between his wife and his lover, and a married man who turns to a prostitute for advice.

Born on a sharecropping plantation in Northern Florida, Ray Charles went blind at seven. Inspired by a fiercely independent mom who insisted he make his own way, He found his calling and his gift behind a piano keyboard. Touring across the Southern musical circuit, the soulful singer gained a reputation and then exploded with worldwide fame when he pioneered coupling gospel and country together.

Set to a classic Duke Ellington recording "Daybreak Express", this is a five-minute short of the soon-to-be-demolished Third Avenue elevated subway station in New York City.

The brilliant self-taught pianist Erroll Garner left his mark on jazz forever. His song Misty, which he allegedly composed between two concerts on an aeroplane, immediately became one of the great jazz standards and is still one of the most covered ballads in the world today. Who was the man behind the ever-friendly smile from the ghettos of Pittsburgh, whose talent brought him to the biggest international stages?